Duke University: Solar energy now cheaper than nuclear power

A paper by Duke University researchers claims solar energy costs are now cheaper than nuclear energy costs, as solar energy costs have been dropped a lot over the past decade while nuclear energy has become more expensive.

The paper on this topic was written by John O. Blackburn, professor of economics at Duke University in North Carolina, and Sam Cunningham, a graduate student at Duke. The paper is titled "Solar and Nuclear Costs - The Historic Crossover," and shows that change in costs on both solar and nuclear energy has finally forced them to meet, and then solar stole the show by becoming the new low-in-price renewable energy resource.

Over the past decade or so, nuclear energy costs have been rising while solar energy costs have been falling. According to Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and Environment, costs for nuclear energy have increased dramatically from $3 billion per reactor in 2002 to $10 billion per reactor in 2010. What's worse is that these prices are expected to climb, and U.S. taxpayers could end up paying hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars "more than needed to achieve our low carbon goals" if the government helps push the use of nuclear energy, which is exactly what it's doing.